So, the original plan was to bottle my latest homebrew batch. Last Sunday (09/02/2014) the beer was ready to go. The gravity had dropped from 1.044 to 1.012 and there had been no activity for at least 48 hours. All was good thus far…

Ok, this is a bit of a silly post. But hey… what’s life without a bit of that every now and then. Also I’ve not done any homebrew for months, so I’ve not got too much to talk about.

Whilst reading of the different beers that I would like to taste, I started daydreaming of the fictional beers I would love to try.

I’m not talking about trying the beers which have been inspired by those from the small screen. No I’m talking (well… writing) about trying the actual fictional beers. To sit in Moes with a duff or in the Drunken Clam with a Pawtucket Patriot.

I’m not much of a fan of big hop flavours in beer. This led to a monumentally stupid mistake on my part – not paying much attention to hops when home brewing.

Yes, I use hops in my beers, but I have never fully appreciated or given hops the right amount of respect. That’s changing.

I think part of my ill-placed mistrust or disinterest in hops came from the current hops/alcohol arms race going on between some brewers. I’m sure you know what I mean. Brewers that seem to chase the “World’s Most Hoppiest/Strongest Beer” accolade. The title that seems more marketing gimmick than anything else.